American Go E-Journal

Live coverage of the eighth round in the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango starts Saturday night at 9pm PST (midnight Sunday morning EST). It takes place in Gu’s hometown, Chongqing, and with the score currently at 5-2 in Lee’s favor this game is a kadoban for Gu and might be the last of the match. Commentators on Baduk TV will replay and analyze the game from the beginning and Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p will translate and discuss the game with Baduk TV Live viewers. Access to the game costs $2.70 with a Baduk TV Day Pass. If you plan to watch the game from the very start, remember to subtract three hours from the times given above. Baduk TV starts the coverage three hours later because the games go for so long.- Go Game Guru

“Recently I was watching the movie 13 Assassins,” writes Cylis Dreamer. “Around the 42 minute mark the two main characters mention playing go together. There might have been more times it was mentioned, but I missed them. I didn’t see a board or stones either.” The 2010 Japanese film was directed by Takashi Miike.

Nick Sibicky will start up the popular Double Digit Kyu Players Class (DDK) on Monday, September 29, at 6:30, at the Seattle Go Center. The class is open to anybody who can finish a 19×19 game. The class is free, and a new member’s first 10 visits to the Go Center are also free.

Nick tapes his lectures and posts them on youtube.com. He has 79 lectures posted now, and he has gathered a world-wide following. All his lectures have thousands of views, and youtube lecture #46 has more than 15,000 views. Nick’s lectures have brought donations from Austria, and visitors from Los Angeles and North Carolina.

This class was started for players in the 25 kyu to 10 kyu range, but stronger players have certainly benefited from these lectures as well. Dan Top will be the alternate teacher when Nick is not available. Dan and Nick play a game in youtube lecture #79.

This completes the Fall class lineup at the Seattle Go Center. The Beginner’s Class with Carlos Encalada is on Thursday Evenings, the DDK class is on Mondays, and the more advanced SDK class with Andrew Jackson is on Wednesdays. Visitors can also find informal instruction on Tuesday, the most popular day at the Go Center, and on Saturdays.

“In your recent article (Your Move/Readers Write: Where to Play Go in Japan 9/13 EJ), Devin Flake states that the Diamond Go Salon is ‘mainly for women,’” writes” Adam Harding. “I am a long term member of that salon and I would say that DIS (Diamond Igo Salon) is not as much ‘mainly for women,’ but more for young and middle-aged players. The salon owners do run a monthly ‘Igo for women’ session which is for women only.” Harding says that Diamond’s other strong points include “a strong connection to the professional world; the owner runs her program on the Igo/Shogi channel; the atmosphere is that of a high-class wine bar instead of smoky back-room, with drinks and food available and the age range of players is about 20-50 on Wednesdays and Fridays instead of 40-60 as seems to be at most other places.” While Harding says DIS “is most slightly more expensive,” he notes that membership brings the entrance price down to that of other salons.” Click here for DIS lesson and Go Circle information and the club’s instructor listing (all in Japanese).

This is the last week to sign up your city’s team for the upcoming year of the Pandanet-AGA City League. “We almost have a full roster for this season,” reports League Coordinator Steve Colburn. Any information can be found on the rules page or at steve.colburn@usgo.org.

A glorious fall day at the Umstead State Park in Cary, North Carolina welcomed the 14th annual Triangle Memorial Go Tournament on September 20. Despite the tranquil surroundings, mental chaos reigned under the picnic shelter as 34 contestants from four states battled through four rounds. The early prediction for a final repeating last year’s showdown between the two 7-dan prior champions, but all expectations changed when the top three players all fell in the first round. Ultimately Seth Cardew (at right, in white shirt) of Tennessee, entered as 2-dan, emerged as the Open champion with a perfect score of 4-0, defeating both 7-dans in the process, including an astonishing kill against many-time champion Changlong Wu in the final round (right), taking just two stones, which secured the $500 top prize. Second place went to Liqun Liu 7D at 3-1.

Other prize winners were Justin Blank at 4-0 followed by Anthony Long, both 4k, in Group A, Alvin Chen 10k scoring 4-0 in Group B, and Dale Blann 14k sweeping section C at 4-0 with Ellen Zeng at 3-1. Following long tradition, all entry fees were returned to the players in prizes, augmented by a gift from the sponsoring Triangle Go Group, and all players were treated to lunch and snacks throughout. The tournament was directed by AGA membership coordinator Charles Alden (left), with logistical assistance from Bob Bacon, Paul Celmer and Adam Bridges.- report by Charles Alden; photos by Bob Bacon

Peter Nelson, a recent arrival to Seattle from Minnesota, was selected for the Seattle 1 Pandanet-AGA City League Team, after winning the Qualifier Tournament at the Seattle Go Center by a narrow margin. Longtime Northwest player Edward Kim placed second at the tournament, with the same win/loss record, and will also join the team. Returning first team members are Simon (Ximeng) Yu, and Ho Son. The Seattle Pandanet-AGA team placed second last August in the A League competition, losing to the team from neighboring Vancouver B.C. The board order for the teams in the online tournament is determined by AGA ratings, so Nelson will probably have the alternate position. Nelson had an AGA rating of 3 dan last month, and has a 4 dan rating at present. However, he won two even games against a 7 dan at the tournament, plus a game against Xiaowu Li, who is a 5 dan in China, so observers expect his rating to continue to improve.

The open tournament was a challenge to both players and Tournament Directors Sonny Cho and Dennis Wheeler. Due to “circular wins” four players had identical records after four rounds, necessitating a playoff round. The tournament lasted 9 hours and some players had five games. In addition to Peter Nelson and Edward Kim, Dong Baek Kim and Xiaowu Li were finalists. This was the first Seattle event for Xiaowu Li, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington Law School, and former director of the faculty go club at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Photo: Simon (Ximeng) Yu watches the game of Peter Nelson and Xiaowu Li. Report/photo by Brian Allen

The AGA is holding a 1-day tournament on KGS on Monday, September 22 to select the replacement for Gansheng Shi, who was selected to represent North America at the SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG) but could not go. Mingjiu Jiang will play Eric Lui on Monday at 12 noon EDT in the AGA tournament room, and the winner will later play a deciding game with Jie Liang. The time for the second game is yet to be determined, but we’ll try to post it on our Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Registration for this year’s Cotsen Open is now open. The 2-day tournament will be held on October 25-26 at the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Sponsored by Eric Cotsen (at right), the tournament is one of the biggest on the annual U.S. go calendar and features thousands of dollars in prizes, an extremely competitive Open Division, live KGS commentary on top board games, free masseuses for players, and free food truck lunches to all those who pre-register for both days of the tournament. There will also be a demonstration game between Yilun Yang 7P and Yigang Hua 8P. As usual, everyone who pre-registers and plays in all five of their matches will have their full entry fee refunded; click here to register. Follow the Cotsen on Twitter and Facebook for the latest tournament news.